Bob & Harvey Weinstein's desperation to relive former glories continue. The struggling production company are banking on the return of the Scream and Spy Kids franchises next year to get them out of a financial hole, and now comes the surprising announcement of a deal with Miramax, the company they founded, left & recently lost a battle to re-purchase, to develop sequels to three of their highest profile hits. Announced today in a press release are sequels to Bad Santa (which they have been trying to make for a while), the 1998 poker drama Rounders and most bizarrely of all, the Oscar winning Shakespeare in Love. WHAT? Let's look at them one at a time... Bad Santa 2 is probably the least surprising. Billy Bob Thornton has wanted to reprise his much loved drunken & offensive lout for years and recently mentioned to Collider that sequel talk had been ramping up again. Bad Santa has such a strong following, especially in the online-sphere that I'm sure this development will be welcomed by many. Rounders is of course the well remembered cards drama that starred Matt Damon and Edward Norton, and was directed by John Dahl. The film's original writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who would later go on to write the Ocean's Eleven movies, have spoken previously about the Rounders sequel that they wanted to write;
Weve talked a lot about doing Rounders 2 when we were making Oceans 13 and we were working with Matt again. We talked about it a lot and Edward came by and we had meetings and we called John Dahl, and hes in to do the sequel. Its just a question of when were going to do it, when we have the exact angle in.
Presumably if the script was right, they could attract the big names from the original for another shuffle of the cards. The real headscratcher here is a sequel to the controversial 1998 Best Picture winner Shakespeare in Love, a period rom-com which 12 years ago conned the Academy into awarding it with 7 golden statues! Recently we've been doing a retrospective of the 1998 Oscars and I've been calculating the results today and boy, from the way you guys have voted, time has not been kind to that film at all. It's barely managed to pick up any votes outside of the performances. So where could a sequel even go? Shakespeare's In Love Again? Would they be able to attract all those stars from the original? Have they even spoken to Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Geoffrey Rush, etc - before announcing this development? I'm betting they haven't. So as well as these three films, The Weinsteins are also looking to make further sequels or make t.v. shows out of other previous hits. They name check the following... Bridget Jones's Diary (previously muted as a t.v. show but surely Renee Zellweger would return, she's in the doldrums of cinema right now), Copland (prime for a t.v. show), From Dusk Till Dawn (series' last outing was a prequel ten years ago titled From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter, a reboot or t.v. show would seem to be in order) Swingers (isn't this basically Entourage?) Clerks (I think Smith has made it clear he wants to do a third movie sometime down the road, so this well happen) Shall We Dance and The Amityville Horror (this one we knew about last December) Lots of major Hollywood talent were involved in the original films of all those above. It's going to be very interesting to see if they can be attracted to return, or more likely how The Weinsteins/Miramax plan to reboot them with fresh faces. Just as I was typing this, Kevin Smith has responded to the mention of Clerks in this press release;
I sold the movie to them in 1994. But I guess if someone was going to exploit the library for sequels, remakes, tv, Id rather it be the devil I know. Nice to know theres a home for Clerks III if I ever wanted to make it, but hope it doesnt become a home for a Clerks-anything if Im not involved. Either way, I doubt my sh*t is even something they wanna re-do/remake. They own Clerks, Chasing Amy, Jersey Girl and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. But then its further complicated by the Jay & Silent Bob of it all. They dont own Jay & Silent Bob; I do. They own Strike Back, but they cant make any flick thatd include Jay & Silent Bob (even a Strike Back sequel) without my permission/license. The only flick they own free & clear of me with no ties whatsoever, is Jersey Girl. And from personal experience, theres little to no interest in a sequel or remake, unless it opens with JLos dead Mom busting out of her earthen grave, trampling her only begotten daughters copy of a Necronomicon as she eats her brains. If they wanna do THAT Jersey Girl sequel, Im totally in. But honestly, all those flicks are theirs to do with as they will. I cant (and wont) complain. At least the Guardians of GaHarvey are still in place, looking out for the dopey little (f)art flicks I made so long ago.